THAULEEMA’S THAULEEM*
By Dhahau Naseem
I wanted to find someone who grows their own plants and vegetables to make a story about them when Thauleema offered to take me to exactly that. I met her in Ukulhahu School, among the festival goers, students parents and teachers and got talking. “Come with me“ she said, and we headed off in the midday heat to a house near the ferry terminal. “This is Faheema’s house. She grows chillies and various other vegetables to use at home and to sell.” We walk in and I immediately notice pineapple heads rooting in jars of water near some freshly caught fish. “There’s Faheema, you talk to her and I’ll talk to the chillies” she grinned and went off to inspect the plants. Faheema grows chillies, breadfruit, curry leaves, pineapples, stone apples and whatever else she can get her hands on. I snapped away as she told me about them. “Hurry up now, we need to go have a cold drink” Thauleema said, “and now we’ve got chillies to eat with our rice today”.
We walked into the cafe next door and found a seat and waited to be served. I asked Thauleema what she did. “I’m a teacher at Ukulhahu School. I’m volunteering at the festival today.” She’s been teaching for 23 years now and has been tending to the schools garden the entire time. “I planted most of the trees there along with some other teachers. I also used to be in charge of the Eco Club and we used to get students to plant trees there as well.”. I mused about how she was a pretty solid grower too. “You should see my the garden in my house! I will take you and maybe you can interview the mangoes there” she said with a twinkle in her eye, patting the bag of chillies and stone apples we had gotten. It occurred to me that I had my story right here.
As we finished our drinks I asked her how she got into teaching. “I’ve always wanted to teach. I lived here in Ukulhas till I was 14 and we never had any formal education. We used to climb trees, swim and help the adults with their work.That was our education. The only thing we got taught was Math and Quran. When I was 16 I wanted to do a teaching course. I didn’t succeed at first but I did it again and became a teacher. I did the course in 1988 and started teaching Primary School. I completed more courses in 1998 and 2004 and 2014 and am now qualified to teach Secondary School. I’m one month away from getting my diploma now.” she beamed. “I’ll do a degree next and I’ll stop after that. My goal will be achieved then and that will be enough. I’ll have studied and taught what I couldn’t learn when I was a child” she said. I pointed out the obvious link between her unusual name and what she did. It was meant to be. We set off to her house and came across a Starfruit tree on the way. “We must get some!” she said, “they’re ripe too, look.” I was looking up trying to spot what she was showing me when she called out “Faisal! come over here. I need some help”. Two boys walked towards up and politely asked what they could do. I realised they were her ex-students as she asked them to climb up and pick some fruit for her. The perks of being a teacher. The boys obliged and one of them had a bag of starfruit for us in no time. They left and she had a look, “we need a couple more. This won’t be enough.”. The boys were nowhere in sight and I offered to climb the tree instead and got a couple more and she insisted on taking a photo of me on the tree with what I had got.
We went to her house and she showed me the mango trees, banana trees, rose apple trees and various other plants that she had grown before we headed back to the school to re-join the festival. On the way there we encountered some of her young students who had been planting cuttings in school a few days before. They were playing in the rain but were happy at the chance to show off their handiwork and came with us. Thauleema gave them some more cuttings and they proudly planted them as I watched. “We’re planting vegetables next week” one of them said, “ and we’ll get to keep them when they grow big!”
I thanked her for the lovely time and she handed the bag of fruit and chillies saying “These are for you. Something to take back home. You can’t leave the island empty handed.”
Footnotes*Thauleem in Dhivehi means education